Washington, D.C. – Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva today congratulated Central Arizona College (CAC) and Arizona Western College (AWC) for receiving separate grants this week from the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Department of Education (DOE), respectively.

CAC, which has campuses throughout Southern and Central Arizona, received a nearly $2.2 million grant through DOL’s Community-Based Job Training (CBJT) program, which seeks to help community colleges prepare applicants for work in emerging industries and focuses on unemployed and dislocated workers. The funds support development of training curricula with local industry, hiring qualified faculty, arranging on-the-job experiences with industry, and using up-to-date equipment.

The program will train solar power installation technicians and biofuels production technicians. CAC has said it will use the funds to establish a certificate program in solar installation, a certificate program in biofuels production, and  a two-year associate degree to train renewable energy technicians. The degree program has a track for biofuels and another for solar, both of which will be provided in a hybrid format that includes face-to-face instruction and online instruction. The school expects 745 participants, according to DOL.

AWC, located in Yuma, received just over $417,000 through DOE’s College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP), which assists migratory or seasonal farmworkers and their children enrolled in their first undergraduate school year. CAMP funds include a variety of potential services and assistance to students, including counseling, tutoring, skills workshops, financial aid stipends, health services, and housing assistance. Competitive five-year grants for CAMP projects are made to schools or nonprofit private agencies. The current grant was disbursed July 1 and will last until the end of June 2011.

“Supporting community colleges and their students continues to be a key federal commitment, and I’m glad to see these schools get the financial assistance they need to keep Arizona educated and competitive,” Grijalva said of the grants. “These kinds of innovative programs are what’s going to get our economy moving again in the right direction.”

For more information about the CAC grant, call (520) 494-6700. For more information about the AWC grant, call Susan Dempsey-Spurgeon at (928) 344-7726.